Support grows for 70% crash

carolt wrote: »

Funny that, my parents bought in the 50's too. Not as posh as your parents, of course - my dad was only a manual worker.

But they didn't have to live in a rented room at all - they'd actually bothered saving a deposit before marrying. They got a 2.5 or 3 X times multiple (of the single salary) mortgage that enabled them to buy a 3 bed semi in a very nice north London Zone 3 suburb. Price in 2007 - approx 500K.

Your parents must have been really rubbish with money. Or have seriously annoyed their bank manager.

My parents certainly found it much easier to buy than their children. None of whom, on far, far better paid jobs, could have afforded an equivalent purchase as FTBs.

Sorry to reply twice, but you've got me a little curious as to why my parents struggled so much to buy a house.

They bought their first house in Morden, Surrey. It was a 3 bedroomed terraced house. I think I remember them saying it cost them £2000. And this would fit with what a Google search through up about house prices back then:

The average house price in the UK in 1950 was £1.9k
http://www.wwwk.co.uk/culture/housing/index.htm

My dad was a Clerical Officer in the Civil Service. So was my mum, but once married I think my mum had to be demoted to Clerical Assistant as married women weren't allowed to be CO's. I don't know about the 50's but when I spent a short time in the Civil Service in the 80's the CA / CO wage was below average wage. Certainly a respectable profession - the start of a decent career. But I don't know if it paid an average wage.

Now, according to this:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/pensions/article.html?in_article_id=427290&in_page_id=6

The average wage in the 50's would have been about £350 per anum.

So (assuming these figures are correct, and I accept they may well not be) the average house price in the UK was five and a half times the average annual wage in the UK.

Add to that the fact that many married women stopped working and even if they did work their salary wasn't taken into account when it came to getting a mortgage.

My mum and dad loved to tell me how lucky I was to get a mortgage of thee times my salary back in the 80's. I'm fairly sure that my dad was only able to get 1.5 times his salary. Maybe it was 2 times. But not more than that. But regardless, back then the average priced house was out of reach of people earning the average salary - and certainly out of reach of anyone earning less than average salary.

These figures do tie up with the stories my mum and dad told me. And the fact that far fewer people owned their own homes back then makes me tend to believe them. Presumably home ownership has increased over the years because it's become possible for more people?